


Tilting Towards an Unseen Future

by Meimi



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Canon, lots of them - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 09:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21250892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meimi/pseuds/Meimi
Summary: In which Yusaku pretends that he isn't sinking and pins his hopes on one final gambit. Meanwhile, an old threat begins to creep out of the shadows behind him.





	Tilting Towards an Unseen Future

**Author's Note:**

> So my friend got me into VRAINS, and boy in there a lot to unpack in that show. But it has the same problems that other shows and movies so often do these days, they stumble over how to treat AI. The whole death issue annoyed me. Then I read a couple of fics and then [porcelainepeony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/porcelainepeony/pseuds/porcelainepeony) posted [All for You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20865233) (go read it, it's great) and it was perfect and everything was wonderful.
> 
> Then I started getting ideas. Please enjoy your trip down my rabbit hole. :D

It hadn't been easy. Not that he'd ever thought it would be. Disappearing in this day and age was difficult at best, and almost nigh impossible with the type of people he knew. _He'd had to leave his phone behind_. Yusaku was almost certain that if he hadn't left the occasional marker behind in the network letting people know that he was still alive, then _somebody_ would have paid Ghost Girl to find him. What rankled is that he wasn't entirely sure of just who that somebody might have ended up being. Maybe all of them? Ugh. _Bonds_ were a lot easier to talk about than deal with.

The three saving graces that aided in his escape had been:

#1: His monthly rent was setup under direct deposit on his bank account. The utilities were not, but he'd arranged for them to be shut off while he was gone.

#2: His duel disk was ancient and very difficult to track to begin with, and the extra security he'd programmed into it before he'd left made it practically invisible to the network. Ghost Girl and Kusanagi would probably still have been able to find him eventually, but the former would've had to have been paid to do it and the latter had still been locked into number three.

#3: They'd all just assumed he needed the time and space to grieve properly.

_Ridiculous_. As if he'd ever run away from his problems before. No matter how painful it got, or how much it cost him, Yusaku always ended up facing them head on, and he supposed he always would. Still, they'd been correct in one regard, he had needed time and space, but it had nothing to do with grief. _Grieve?_ No. He refused.

_Four months_. It took Yusaku four months to find his way forward again.

Everything that had happened… He hadn't been able to accept it. _Wouldn't_. Not after that first night. Yusaku sometimes wondered if he was even capable of accepting such cataclysmic changes in his life. Probably not. Not anymore. He was such crap at coping. Not that he'd really needed to accept it. Rationality had failed him. Logic had failed him. His emotions _always_ failed him. His link sense never did.

The quiet static was always there. Faint, ever so faint, but reassuring nonetheless.

It had started up after the duel, or at least that's what Yusaku assumed. He wasn't entirely sure. He'd lost some time there. All that he knew is that after he'd become aware again, it had been there. And it had been there ever since, needling him every moment of every day, forcing him to seek out _why_.

Ai was _dead_. Gone. Buried. Lost. That's what he'd tried to tell himself that first night. Tried to make himself believe. But he couldn't. It wasn't right. Nothing about it was. Ai wasn't human. Hadn't ever been human. Wouldn't ever be human. He was an artificial intelligence. He didn't fit into the little box that defined human existence. _He shouldn't_. Ai would always be something more. He didn't have to _stay_ dead. That's what his sense had been telling him. Or at least, that's what Yusaku told himself. And that's where he began.

And, Yusaku supposed, that's also where he started to lose his mind. Nothing about what he'd been doing felt sane, not even to him. But he did it anyway. He couldn't stop. Couldn't let it go. Couldn't let _Ai_ go.

So he'd left. Said nothing. Just gone. Gone searching for what he didn't even know, just something that would lead him back to Ai. And he'd found it. He'd found the tiniest sliver of hope and also a solution to that one particular problem he'd been doing his best to avoid thinking about. The problem was simple, but also impossible. Ai had wanted to die. It was a very hard truth that Yusaku had to face if he was ever going to fix anything. Ai hadn't been able to face being the sole Ignis in existence, hadn't been able to live with the future it would bring. Yusaku would have to change that somehow, otherwise he'd be right back where they'd started. Thankfully, what he'd found would probably help with that.

He'd gone looking for Ai. He'd found pieces of Flame first.

The network was vast and seemingly endless, and Yusaku had found little pieces of Ignis tangled up in every single part of it. He wonders, sometimes, why he hadn't seen them before. _Had Ai seen them?_ They'd been everywhere. Little gleaming beacons of unique elemental signatures that lead him around the network by the nose, figuratively speaking. But, he supposed, he'd always been too wrapped up in Ai and his own personal crusade to recognize anything outside of the dark. And there had been so many of them, thousands and thousands of tiny, torn pieces of data. All of them were Ignis. All of them had to be extracted by hand. Hours and hours of work. Days had gone by, then weeks. The first month had vanished in his mind's eye, he couldn't even remember most of the places he'd slept at during that month much less what he'd eaten. He'd been slightly more lucid the second month, mostly because he'd realized one day that he couldn't remember the last time he'd showered and he _reeked_. Personal hygiene was somewhat important. The third month had flashed by with laser focus, he'd found most of Ai during that month. There'd been so much of him, so much data. More than the others. Much more. Had he really grown so much further beyond the other Ignis in such a short frame of time? And did Yusaku even want to know why? He… wasn't sure about that. Some answers may be better left unknown. During the fourth month, Yusaku had spent the majority of his time wondering what the hell he thought he was doing as he fished up huge chunks of Lightning's data, realized that most of Windy's data was horrifically corrupt, and that half of Earth was missing.

Then he came home.

Coming home had been both relatively easy and _extremely_ difficult. It had been simple enough to make his apartment acceptable for human habitation again. The apartment was tiny and barely had anything in it. It was the easiest thing in the world to clean. Though, sometimes he'd had to just stop and sit down for awhile. He'd only been able to identify the Ignis in the network, not… not any other kind of AI. Yusaku wasn't sure of what to make of that. Had he reached the limit of his capabilities? He was a damn good hacker, but he was still human, still restricted in a way. There hadn't been any trace of Roboppi, nothing at all. There should have been, but there wasn't. Had he missed something? Surely, he must have. The universe didn't just swallow things up. Not… not like that.

Still, despite the painful tangents his mind had gone off on, Yusaku had managed to clean the apartment up in a reasonable amount of time. As expected, he'd found more than a few bugs whilst dusting. _The people he knew_. So aggravating. He'd left two up near the entryway, because if he didn't make some concessions, they'd just put more in. The rest had been dumped into an ancient tupperware container and shoved into the freezer. After that, he'd very pointedly not called anyone, didn't even charge his very dead phone. Instead, he'd gone about tearing his computer apart and then putting it back together with absolutely no ability to connect to anything else whatsoever. No wireless. Nothing. There were risks involved in what he'd been doing. There would be far more with what he was about to do. As much as he wanted- _needed_ everything to work out, he couldn't ignore the possibility that something, anything, _everything_ could go wrong. _He literally had Lightning in his pocket_. No. He could _not_ ignore the risks.

But he couldn't stop either. Not for this. Not for Ai. He was repeating history in a sense, not necessarily just his own, but the point still stood. And he was expecting a different result. The very definition of insanity.

_How ridiculous_.

The next day he slept solid for about twelve hours. Surprising, and yet not. He had a lot more nightmares these days, old ones and new ones. They were frequent visitors, always lingering at the doorway waiting for him, but even they had trouble finding a foothold when he was exhausted beyond words. Thankfully, by the time he awoke, the water was back on and thus he took a shower and felt somewhat alive again. A quick trip to the local convenience store dealt with the hunger issue, and then he was back home. Once he'd gotten settled, he finally charged his phone. There were… a lot of messages. More than there really ought to have been. Honestly, _the people he knew_. There had also been several missed calls from the day before, and quite a few from that morning. At least none of them had shown up yet. A small blessing. That wouldn't last. But that was fine. He was almost done getting everything to where he needed it to be, and then… He could probably drop by Cafe Nagi for dinner.

That… that was something he could do.

He just needed to finish setting everything up. Get the data off of all the externals he had stuffed in his clothes and then… Then he could get started on piecing back together the end of humanity. One by one. _Well_. He'd always been opposed to the ideals of the Knights of Hanoi, might as well go for broke, as they say.

The future wasn't set in stone. Yusaku refused to believe that. He _would_ change it.

—-

A month passed. Yusaku didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both. Probably both. Slotting back into his life in Den City had been eerily straightforward and uneventful. He didn't get yelled at. He didn't get any disappointed looks directed his way. Everyone had just been happy to see him. He didn't know what to do with that. Why weren't they upset? It didn't make any sense.

The school, at least, had been a bit put out with him, but the story he'd come up with for it had been foolproof. To an extent. There had been some dubious looks, but the records he'd forged were beyond reproach. Due to his attendance issues and questionable grades, his family had placed him into a private school with a special program aimed at borderline delinquents. It was a great lie, though Takeru _still_ laughed at him about it every now and then.

Yusaku _did_ still have family, though he hadn't seen any of them since shortly after the Incident. His mother's family probably still hated his guts. They'd blamed him for her death, but the counselors had always assured him that the woman's health had been in decline long before he'd been kidnapped. Yusaku had never been able to recall anything about her, so he'd never had any way of knowing whether that was true or not. It had always been out of his hands, so it hadn't really mattered in the long run. His father had apparently passed away sometime before everything, back when he'd been a toddler. He'd probably never even known the man. Just another personal relationship that had vanished into his empty past.

It had been his father's parents who had kept his afloat for so long. While they'd been unable, and perhaps unwilling, to take care of him themselves, they'd remotely paid for everything as he'd tried, and failed, to move on with his life. Yusaku never mentioned any of it to anyone, because he didn't want other people telling him how he should feel about it. The counselors had tried, but he just… _didn't_. There were no connections there for him to work with. He was grateful enough for what he'd gotten, and that was it.

Anyone who tried to check up on the story he'd concocted would certainly get the runaround though. The private school in question _did_ exist, and he _was_ in their records. The fact that he hadn't actually attended wouldn't matter in the slightest to its administration, however. They'd been paid, so why should they care? If anyone actually bothered to try and call his family… well, that would be something. His mother's family would probably hang up at the mere mention of his name, and his father's parents probably wouldn't even answer the phone. It worked out perfectly.

Unfortunately, all of that meant that he actually had to do well in school now. Which meant he had to pay attention. No more naps during lectures. It was the absolute _worst_. And he'd done it to himself. Maybe he was just punishing himself already? Unconsciously afflicted suffering? Yusaku could buy that. He did feel pretty wretched for what he was doing.

Nobody knew.

No one had asked him about what had happened. No one had asked him what he'd done for those four months when he'd been gone. No one asked him why he left. Sometimes he felt like Kusanagi might broach the subject, but then something else would always crop up. Yusaku wasn't sure what to make of that. He didn't think that they didn't care. He _knew_ better than that. So why? Did they not want to know? Did they really think they already knew? His third reason had been a bit questionable, but maybe he'd actually been right. Were they trying to spare him from… thinking about it? He'd never been fragile, so why the hesitation? Did they think he would break? Surely not, he was still here. He wasn't about to give up now.

But, Yusaku supposed their reticence worked in his favor. He didn't really know what he would have told them otherwise. He was lying enough as is, he didn't really want to compound that with even more lies. He blew off Kusanagi's repeated attempts to get him to work at the truck with the excuse that he actually had to "school" now. Which was true enough, in a sense, but also… Yusaku didn't know how to act around Jin. And did he even have the right? He was piecing their tormentor back together in his spare time. Jin was nice enough, and actually seemed to want to be friends for some unknown reason, but the Lightning issue still stood. Even if they didn't know about it, _he did_. He _didn't_ have the right. He didn't deserve Jin's friendship, and he sure as hell didn't deserve the kindness and encouragement Kusanagi always, _always_ gave him.

He didn't deserve any of it.

Takeru was easier. He still wore his heart on his sleeve, so to speak, and thus it was nothing at all for Yusaku to just let him take the lead whenever they were together. Takeru's grandparents had apparently insisted he stay in Den City when school was in session. Something about getting a better education here. Yusaku wasn't sure about that, but at the same time he very much appreciated Takeru still being around. It was nice to have friends close by. But also difficult. He still had to lie.

Yusaku _wanted_ to tell Takeru about Flame. It was on the tip of his tongue so many times, but he couldn't say the words. Takeru _deserved_ to know, it would be the right thing to do. But Yusaku _couldn't_ tell him. Because Takeru wouldn't keep it to himself. Not something this important. And Yusaku… Yusaku was selfish. He didn't want Kusanagi to hate him. Not yet. And more than that, he couldn't risk any of them trying to stop him. So… he just… let Takeru think everything was as okay as it could be. There was nothing else he could do.

God, what was wrong with him?

Zaizen on the other hand just baffled him. Yusaku had no idea of what to make of her behavior. She insisted he call her Aoi. "_Because we're friends, you know_." _Why?_ He'd let Ai hurt them. Sure, he hadn't known exactly what had been going on at the time back then, but he should have stopped it anyway. If he'd just found the other Ignis before… He could have stopped Ai's anguish before it had gotten out of hand. He'd had the means, but he'd failed them all by not looking beyond what was in front of him. But in spite of that, she kept calling him by his name, and insisted he do the same, and Yusaku just didn't know anymore.

Did he ever?

Aoi usually spent lunch with them these days, he and Takeru. It had been extremely awkward at first. Aoi and Yusaku were both incredibly terrible at being people, but Takeru made things easier. He was good at that. They just talked about normal things, which really just meant Yusaku ended up listening most of the time. They didn't keep him out of their conversations, per se. In fact, whenever Yusaku did pipe up, they were overly eager to hear what he had to say. It's just… He'd never been good at that. Just chatting with others. They didn't seem to hold it against him, but… he couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was lacking in their interactions. They talked about dueling fairly often. _Of course, they did_. Soulburner and Blue Siren, Aoi's latest avatar, were frequently filmed dueling each other in the current version of LINK VRAINS. Soulburner absolutely refused to be referred to as a Charisma Duelist, to which Aoi ragged him about incessantly whenever their duels came up. She also ragged on Takeru about his friend Kiku, at which point Yusaku would just tap out of the conversation. There were some things about his friends that he just didn't want to know.

They didn't ask him to log on. Didn't ask him to duel. Yusaku was incredibly thankful for that. Because he couldn't. Playmaker had been a tool. A rather useful one that he'd come to take pride in. But he couldn't go back to it. Not after what he'd done. He couldn't face that. Not… Not unless Ai wanted him to. As for dueling… The last time he'd dueled, he'd killed the most important person in his life. There wasn't any real way to come back from that, not any that he could think of. Just looking at his deck these days made Yusaku sick to his stomach. He'd placed so much of himself on the line with those cards. Too much. Sometimes he wondered why he hadn't been swallowed whole instead. And yet, he was still here. It was kind of funny, in a sick sort of way, he'd put so much into his revenge, into finding Ryoken. And where had that gotten him? Then he'd ended up putting more into saving Jin, saving _everyone again_, and trying to save the Ignis right along with them, hoping against hope that something would remain. It hadn't worked out. And yet, even after all of that, Ai, the helpless idiot, had still decided Yusaku's life was more important than his own.

_Stupid_.

Yusaku had friends now. People who quite obviously cared about him. People whom he cared about in return. The life he had now was a good one, he could probably build a pretty great future out of it without too much effort. It's what Ai would have wanted for him, no doubt. And maybe if he'd never met Ai, he could have been content with that. Maybe, once upon a time, he could have even been happy with it. Happy with how the way things were going.

But Ai wasn't here, and Yusaku couldn't live with that.

—-

Another month passed by. Yusaku's restoration project was coming along fairly well. He'd made an imaging program halfway through the previous month. Not that he necessarily needed visual representation to remind him of what he was really working towards, but it certainly helped for his peace of mind. He'd gotten sick of just seeing them as broken data on his computer screen. _They weren't just data!_ Each Ignis had a little silhouette on the screen now, hollow images of how their original bodies had looked, ones that slowly filled in as he painstakingly put them all back together again, piece by piece. It was also around this time that he came to the realization that he was probably the only person who could do this. Their code was completely incomprehensible in places. Yusaku wasn't figuring it out. He didn't think he could. Didn't think anyone else could either. Nobody still _living_, anyway. Perhaps not even the dead anymore. But somehow Yusaku just knew where each piece of shattered data belonged in the whole. He supposed it was probably his link sense at work. He didn't really have any other explanation for it.

Regardless of how he was managing to do it though, it worked. They were starting to come back together. More or less. Yusaku had Windy completely quarantined. Even with putting the Ignis back together, the corruption was severe, and Yusaku didn't think he could fix that. Maybe one of the others could once they were… alive again. Earth was as complete as he was going to get, hovering at forty-eight percent. The rest of the Earth Ignis was probably buried somewhere in Sol Technologies' databanks. He hoped so, anyway. If it _was_ there, he could get it out. It would be a nightmare undertaking, to be sure, but it was doable. The only other possibility was that Earth's remaining data was somehow with Go Onizuka and Yusaku just didn't even want to contemplate what that would mean. No. It had to be with Sol.

Things looked much better with the others. Yusaku had gotten Ai up to ninety-nine percent, and then had forcibly made himself stop. As much as he wanted to, and as much as it felt like every single fibre of his being ached at the prospect, he could not bring Ai back first. Not if he wanted this to work. Ai would have to wait a little bit longer. Aqua was at sixty-six percent and Flame at seventy-two. Those two were the best choices to try and revive first. The only choices, really. Lightning was at eighty percent, but there was no way Yusaku could bring him back without having a solid plan of how to deal with him. And Yusaku just didn't have one. Couldn't think of anything. But if the others wanted Lightning back, then… He wouldn't deny them, but they'd have to have a pretty well thought out plan of how to contain Lightning and prevent him from doing anymore damage. There couldn't be a repeat of what had happened before.

Meanwhile, his social life was going swimmingly, which made him feel lower than dirt. Aoi and Takeru had started hanging out at Cafe Nagi nearly every day after school, which in turn made Yusaku hang out there much longer than he ever intended, which in turn had Jin gravitating into hanging out with them too. Yusaku still didn't know how to be friends with Jin, still didn't think he deserved to be friends with him, but Jin apparently had zero problems in making friends despite Yusaku's reservations. They _were_ all friends now and Yusaku just wanted to sink into the ground and never come back out again. The other two didn't talk about dueling at all whenever they hung out with Jin, which Yusaku supposed was for the best. It was strange, and somehow felt wrong, to share such a personal aversion with someone he was actively betraying. And yet, it was also somehow comforting.

Jin was a good friend. Yusaku wasn't.

Aoi had also introduced Yusaku and Takeru to Miyu, Aqua's Origin. Or rather, Aoi had invited them over to her place for dinner and ambushed them with her friend. Miyu was nice. She'd taken to Takeru easily enough and now ganged up on him with Aoi whenever the subject of Kiku came up. When that happened, Yusaku would just sit back and drink the fruit flavored tea Aoi apparently especially made for them whenever they were invited over. He knew this because Aoi's brother had quietly informed him of it one time.

Zaizen _"Your friends should come visit more often. They're more than welcome."_ Akira bugged Yusaku. A lot. And to be perfectly honest, Yusaku wasn't entirely sure why. The man was a bit of a dichotomy. He was very composed, almost to the point of being unflappable; but much like Takeru, he also wore his heart on his sleeve. Proudly so, in Zaizen's case. It was aggravating. Yusaku wanted to dislike him, and he did to an extent, but the man was impossible to hate. Yes, Zaizen had participated in some pretty sketchy things Sol Technologies had ordered from on high, but he'd also helped out and done his best to mitigate the damage. Things might have turned out much worse if the man hadn't been there. And back then, back during that first crusade, Zaizen had been painfully honest in his ill thought out attempt to try and save Yusaku from himself. But therein lay the problem. Zaizen didn't understand rage, had never felt perpetual fury and the way it could spark so easily into an inferno right below the surface of your skin. No, his strength lay more in building foundations and making reparations. Shame he was stuck being the CEO for Sol Technologies. He probably could have done a lot more good somewhere else.

Zaizen Akira was a good person; and yet, between the two of them, Yusaku knew that the man actually viewed _him_ as the hero. He _hated_ that.

—-

One more month passed him by. Flame was at a hundred percent. Yusaku now had to deal with the dilemma of how to get the Ignis back into the network and then resurrect him without anyone noticing. The latter was going to be pretty difficult, because by his own calculations, Yusaku was going to need a lot of power to pull that off. And while he certainly wasn't going to need as much power as something stupid like the Tower of Hanoi, therein lay the crux of his current problem. Thanks to that previous disaster, security protocols had changed, and now any and all energy spikes were closely monitored. He probably could get around the security system for that, somehow, but it was going to take a lot of work. It would also take up a lot more time and he wasn't sure he had much of that left anymore.

It wasn't that anyone was suspicious. He hadn't given them any reason to be. But that was the problem. Yusaku was getting tired. Tired of lying and tired of pretending that everything was okay. It wasn't. There was a distinct possibility that it never would be again. And he sure as hell wasn't all right. He never had been. He needed Ai. More than anything. He didn't have three reasons anymore. There was just the one.

Yusaku acknowledged that his plan could fail. There was no way of knowing if such advanced artificial life could be restored. And even if he succeeded, there was always the possibility that they would be different even if he did manage to pull it all off. _Changed_. He… didn't know what he would do if Ai didn't recognize him. If Ai came out not caring anymore… What would he do then?

Something as equally stupid as Ai's suicide gambit, probably. They were a pair.

But no, he had no room for doubts. He would do this. And it would work. There was no other option.

He just needed to figure out how to hide it from everyone else.

Speaking of which, he'd found a new bug in his apartment the night before. It was a model he didn't recognize. Perhaps Ghost Girl was using a new manufacturer? He didn't think it was any of the ex-Hanoi, they tended to be polite enough to install theirs outside. Which is just as well, because he didn't want to have to deal with any of them ever again. Ryoken, yes. In spite of everything, including his better judgment, Yusaku would always leave a door open for him. The rest of them though? They could all fall off the face of the planet and he didn't think it would bother him in the slightest. Kusanagi was also out. His friend wasn't going to bug Yusaku unless he gave him a reason to. And while Yusaku had more than enough reasons, he was fairly certain he hadn't given any of them away. By all appearances, he was getting on with his life. Making friends. Being friendly. Like any other teenager. No one knew he was falling apart. He hadn't let them.

Maybe it was Sol?

Zaizen wouldn't do anything of the sort. Hopefully. But somebody else in the company might. Just because they didn't know about Fujiki Yusaku's connection to Playmaker, didn't mean people hadn't taken notice of his friendship with Aoi, or the frequent dinners he attended at their home. Why not spy on him? There's no telling what confidential information a close friend of the CEO's sister might know. It was dumb enough to be a real possibility.

Something told him it was more than that though. But he just didn't have the time or energy to devote into finding out the identity of his newest snooper. Not right now.

He'd soon come to regret that.

They all would.

—-

A few days later, Yusaku got a text at school right as the final bell rang. It was strange, strange enough that he didn't really pay much attention as Takeru grabbed up Yusaku's bookbag and hustled him out of the classroom. Oh right, it was today. Yusaku frowned at his phone as he remembered why he was going to hurt his friends later that night. Takeru had lost a duel last week, one that involved Yusaku without him actually being there, _or even knowing about it_. And today they were going to be the "dates" necessary to gain entrance into the new couples cafe downtown. Miyu apparently really, really wanted to try out the cakes there. There had been profuse apologies, from Aoi and Takeru both, but Yusaku was still required to go. Maybe he should delete both their avatars tonight. It would serve them right. He was going to be up all night anyway keeping an eye out for incriminating photos, because people couldn't respect the privacy of others _and Aoi was the sister of Sol Technologies' CEO_.

_How was this his life?_

And then there was this weird text. A Dr. Takagi was asking if he was related to a name that belonged to his father. While he certainly recognized his father's name, this doctor's was a mystery to him. Did that private school share his records with somebody? The timing was a little too suspect otherwise, and he knew Den City's school system had policies requiring written permission outside of requests from other official establishments. It couldn't have been them. Unless somebody hacked them, but that seemed unlikely. He'd always made sure that his records were fairly unremarkable too. How strange. Maybe a scam? But for what? The only thing he could think of that stood out was his friendship with Aoi. Maybe somebody who wanted an in with Aoi's brother had decided that Yusaku looked like an easy mark. Joke's on them if so. He ate scammers for breakfast.

Takeru bumped their shoulders together, successfully drawing Yusaku's attention back to the here and now. "Everything okay?" Takeru asked with a curious look.

"Yeah," Yusaku replied, giving himself a mental shake as he put his phone away. He'd deal with it later. "It's nothing important."

"You sure?" Takeru gave Yusaku a very wide, cheery, and almost frantic looking smile. "I mean, if you need anything, and I mean, _anything at all_, to get out of today's festivities, I sure wouldn't mind helping out. At all."

"You're the one who lost the duel," Yusaku pointed out unhelpfully.

Takeru winced. "Don't remind me."

"Pay your dues," Yusaku said flatly, then added with a flare of irritation. "And don't involve me next time."

"I won't! I promise."

Yusaku just gave him a look and kept walking. He'd enact his revenge later that night. No need to rush things.

The cafe had been equal parts bad and not so bad. The bad was how gaudy the entire place had been. It reminded him of that stupid welcome banner Ai had made for him back at the SOLtis warehouse. That memory _**hurt**_. Too much for him to keep up his usual act. Yusaku knew that he had been too quiet during the entire thing. He'd seen the worried glances Aoi and Takeru had kept sending his way. But he'd ignored them, giving Miyu his attention instead. The cakes had been exceptionally tasty, much to her delight. And for that alone, Yusaku would grudgingly admit that the entire experience hadn't been a total wash. Seeing one of his friends happy was always a good thing. He just really didn't appreciate what had gotten them to that point.

Hours later found Yusaku sitting on his bed, his back to the wall, and his legs stretched out before him. His laptop was perched atop his pillow, which was squished down in his lap. Despite the painful direction his thoughts had taken for a few hours that afternoon, Yusaku hadn't forgotten what he needed to do. At the moment, he had several popular social media sites open on his screen. He'd already had to nuke a few comments about "Zaizen Aoi's date", but surprisingly, no photos as of yet. Maybe he should skip school tomorrow. Just to be safe. His attendance had been spotless ever since his return, so he doubted missing one day would cause too many problems.

He also had Takeru and Aoi's VRAINS accounts open. Vengeance was sweet, after all. Yusaku had decided against deleting their avatars. That was a little too vicious, even for him. Instead, he'd taken Soulburner's scarf and locked its data up in a logic puzzle. Takeru sure would have _lots of fun_ getting that back. Blue Siren, on the other hand, would have some interesting surprises waiting for her in her deck the next time she dueled. That ought to spice up her game.

The rest of his time was spent researching that weird text he'd gotten near the end of school. Yusaku hadn't forgotten about it, which was just as well. Apparently, Takagi Aritomo was a real person, and judging from the man's history, he may very well have known Yusaku's parents. According to old residential records, the man had moved in to the house right across from the one his parents had lived in shortly after Yusaku's birth. This Dr. Takagi might even have known _him_. That was… Actually, Yusaku didn't know what that was.

Yusaku leaned back, the back of his head resting against the wall as he stared up at the ceiling. In the fight against Hanoi, one of his strongest reasons had been to regain the memories he had lost. The injustice of their absence had burned just as brightly as any of the others. And while Yusaku could confidently say that he'd succeeded in everything else he'd set out to do back then, more or less, the memories of his early life still eluded him. He knew what his parents had looked like. He'd been shown enough photos after the fact to lock their image into his mind's eye. But that was all. His mother had been the only one still around back when the Incident occurred, but try as he might, Yusaku couldn't recall a single thing about her. Had she been kind and caring, cold and distant, or something different altogether? There was no way for him to know. They were just gone, and asides from the first few months after Ryoken had saved them, Yusaku hadn't really cared about what type of person she had been, much less the type his father had been. It just… hadn't ever been important. Perhaps he should have? _Hmm_.

Shaking his head, Yusaku got up from the bed. He couldn't decide on what to do, and it could wait until tomorrow anyway. Placing the laptop off to the side, the screen in view so he could continue to monitor the potential "social disaster" situation, Yusaku sat down at his desk and tapped his main computer back on. There was something else he needed to do… He worried at his bottom lip as the display flickered on, his eyes unerringly zeroing in on the dark form nestled amongst the other five. Today had not been a good day. Not really. It should have been. Sure, he'd been railroaded into doing something he most certainly hadn't wanted to do, but in the long run, it's should've just been a dumb, humorous event topped off by his rightfully deserved revenge. But it wasn't.

The pain he'd experienced from that unexpected reminiscence had put truth to the lie he was living.

Yusaku sighed, his breath coming out silent and hopeless. He couldn't do this anymore. Shoulders drooping, he leaned over and hung his head. It felt like every single lie and omission he'd made in the past three months were piling up on his back, one by one, each an impossibly heavy weight. Everyone always commented on how strong he was, but he didn't feel that way. Not in the least. No, it felt like he was drowning, every moment of everyday. His oh so clever pretense may have gotten him this far, but… It was time to stop.

Reaching forward, Yusaku took hold of the last broken sliver of dark tinged data and put it back exactly where it belonged. _There_. A hundred percent. No more waiting. If he stayed up through the night, Yusaku was sure he could finish piecing Aqua and Lightning back together. Then he could focus on the virtual bubble he'd started constructing to safeguard his resurrection attempt for Flame. The maintenance LINK VRAINS would be performing in three days would be perfect for it. The energy he was going to need could be masked as a surge brought about by a bug when the system came back online. He was still going to have to be extremely shrewd about it to not trigger a security failsafe, but there were a few outside options he could use.

It would work.

He just needed to be ready for it.

—-

Yusaku jerked in the chair, the chime indicating a new text on his phone startling him awake. _What was-_ Blinking rapidly, he looked around the room in alarm. His bedroom. _What? Why was-?_ Oh. Realization washed over him, and with it came a wave of relief. He'd fallen asleep at his desk. Sitting up, no less. It'd been awhile since he'd done something like that. But then again, he supposed, the occasion did call for it. Giving himself a little shake, Yusaku reached over and palmed his phone. A quick swipe brought up the offending text and… Oh.

_/ WHAT DID U DO???? /_

Ah, so Takeru had discovered, and rightfully deduced, Yusaku's form of revenge already. _Excellent_. Though, Yusaku glanced up and squinted at the light filtering in through the windows. Shouldn't Takeru be at school right now? Hmm. Another swipe on his phone revealed the time. Oh, lunchtime. Of course. Poor, scarfless Soulburner. Yusaku smirked, another text chiming through as he put his phone back down.

_/ come on give it back please /_

There's nothing more he needed to do there. That did remind him though. Yusaku leaned forward, snatching his laptop up and praying that he wasn't about to find his face plastered all over the internet as "Zaizen Aoi's New Boyfriend". The screen lit up, but it was mostly blank. Every single site he'd been monitoring had been closed. _What the-?_ A message popped up as he unlocked the touchpad.

_/ You're welcome. /_

Oh.

_/ Next time just let me know what's going on. /_

Kusanagi.

_/ I'd rather you get your sleep than deal with something this stupid. /_

_Damnit_. Yusaku grimaced and reached up to rub the sleep out of his eyes. Now he felt even worse. He hated getting Kusanagi involved in unrelated stuff, but trust in the man to find a way to help him out regardless. He was going to miss that, but… No, there was no way Kusanagi would ever forgive him for putting Lightning back together. Best to just accept the reality of it now.

Shaking his head, Yusaku brought up the log Kusanagi had sent along with the message. Hmm, looks like someone did take pictures of yesterday's "Cafe Dates", but Kusanagi had apparently managed to wipe their phones of the incriminating evidence. _Good_. Not only did Yusaku not want other people to assume he was dating either Aoi _or_ Miyu, but he sure didn't want to have to deal with Takeru having a laugh about it at his expense either. No thank you.

Yusaku sent a simple thanks Kusanagi's way, then placed his laptop back off to the side and keyed his computer back on. Flame was ready. Aqua was ready. Even Lightning was ready. Windy and Earth weren't, and might never be, but Yusaku would cross that bridge when he came to it. The virtual bubble was complete. He just needed to bring it online, but that could wait until closer to maintenance. The amount of energy he needed on the other hand… Well, he was just going to have to outright steal it, but not just from LINK VRAINS. That was too obvious. The security system would catch it. No, there were several obsolete systems scattered about Den City's infrastructure that were close to failing, he was just going to… tip them over the rest of the way. The energy surges would simply be shrugged off as electrical failures that accompanied their malfunctions.

It would work.

Smiling wistfully, Yusaku reached up and stroked his fingertip over the image of his little Dark Ignis. It would just be Flame this time, but the others would follow along soon after.

It was almost over.

—-

Yusaku answered the text from "Dr. Takagi" later that day. He was mildly curious _and_ suspicious, but at the same time he desperately needed a distraction. Everything was in place now, all he had left to do was wait. He'd learned patience as a necessity during all the therapy he went through after the Incident. Then he'd thrown a huge chunk of it out the window when he'd started down the path in search of his revenge. He'd regained some of it throughout it all, bits and pieces here and there, there's no way to be a good hacker without an adequate store of it, but impatience still nipped at his heels from time to time. Now so more than ever.

_/ Yes. He was my father. /_

It probably wouldn't go anywhere. It was probably a scam. No, it was _very highly probable_ to be some sort of scam. But even playing along with a scammer was better than sitting around trying not to think about all the things that could go wrong. Nothing would go wrong. And even if by some stroke of bad luck something _did_ go wrong, he already had multiple backup contingencies planned. It would be fine. Everything would be fine.

_/ Ah, then you must be little Yusaku, though perhaps not quite so little anymore. /_

_Little?_ Yusaku frowned at that. It felt just a tad bit too familiar, though if his research was to be believed, Dr. Takagi probably _had_ known him when he was "little". Of course, that was assuming this was actually the same person that had lived across from his parents. Which was unlikely. Opting for the rude approach, Yusaku sent out another text.

_/ How did you get this number? /_

_/ Ah, my apologies. I suppose it is rather strange to hear from me right out of the blue like this. Just an old man's musings, I'm afraid. /_

What did that even mean?

_/ Which is to say, I was recently cleaning out some of my effects and found a few photographs from that time and grew curious about how you were doing. I've sent the photos along to your grandparents, of course. /_

If so, Yusaku didn't have many ways of checking up on that. If they'd been sent digitally, he could just hack the phone company and check, but that would also give him access to the rest of his grandparents' activity. It was strange, but he was reluctant to invade their privacy like that. Not if he could help it. They were just people he distantly knew in the long run. The blood they shared didn't really amount to much. Hadn't ever. It's just… He just didn't want to know anything more about them. Not at this point.

Of course, they could've been sent through the mail, but that would be even more annoying to check and yet another risk of learning more than he wanted to. Just not happening. Which just left Yusaku with continuing the conversation to figure out what this was all about. If it was a scam, it was a really bizarre angle to go with.

_/ And I suppose you obtained my number from them. /_

_/ Exactly! I hope you don't mind. /_

Would it even matter if he did? Yusaku didn't even think he was being cynical here either. If this was a scam, and if he were an idiot who bought into it, his discomfort would only end up being another tool in their con. On the other hand, if this was legitimate, if Yusaku really was talking to the real doctor who had lived across the street from his childhood home, then the man still actually wanted something and probably wouldn't leave Yusaku alone until he got it. Yusaku debated going his usual route and just stopping this entire thing now and blocking the number, but something told him that wouldn't be the end of it. It was completely innocuous on the surface, but it felt… off.

_/ Not at all. Is there something specific you wanted to know? /_ Yusaku finally typed in. Maybe if he just followed the thread of this conversation for awhile, he could figure out why it was unsettling him.

Unfortunately, nothing else came of it. If this Dr. Takagi was the real deal, and Yusaku half suspected he might very well be, then he was keeping his cards very close to his chest. The man had been polite to a fault, though eager to ply Yusaku with anecdotes about his parents. Which just made Yusaku even more suspicious, almost enough to get him to call Kusanagi in on whatever this was. But no, he wouldn't- _couldn't_ bother Kusanagi anymore, so he'd have to deal with it himself.

Which left him back at square one. The searches Yusaku had conducted on Takagi Aritomo the night before hadn't really given him much to work with. The man's history was incredibly unassuming, which had Yusaku's hackles raised, but there hadn't been any sign of tampering. No wife, no children, no family. Several doctorates in behavioral science. A quote from Charles Darwin under his profile at his Alma Mater. He'd been involved in several projects funded by the government in the past, both confidential and not, but nothing that really stood out. He was a scientist. There were a lot of those.

_What did he want?_

Yusaku blew out a breath, and abruptly rose from his chair, something akin to frustration itching beneath his skin. The timing felt incredibly suspect, but there was absolutely no way anyone else could know what he'd been doing, or what he was planning to do. Which made things worse. What else was there? Outside of the Incident, the Ignis, his revenge, and his stint as Playmaker, there really _wasn't_ anything truly remarkable about Yusaku. He was just some random high school kid. Which is how he liked it.

But something had definitely changed. _What was it?_

Realizing that he'd been pacing, Yusaku sighed and flopped back down into his desk chair. Why was this bothering him so much? He'd had to deal with his fair share of people trying to manipulate him in the past, both distant and not so distant. This didn't appear to be any different. He could just-

Yusaku stopped. Something _had_ changed.

The static was different. There was a steady scratch to it now, like a metronome. Click. Click. Click.

_When did that happen?_

—-

Yusaku went to school the next day, bright and awake. It was strange, but despite everything that had happened in the past two days, he'd slept rather deeply. No nightmares, nothing. Just that odd addition to the static. He had no idea what to make of that, and so he just wouldn't for the time being. He had too much on his mind to worry about as is.

His morning was spent very pointedly ignoring Takeru's repeated attempts to guilt him into giving Soulburner back his scarf. The puzzle wasn't _that_ hard. He could do it himself. Aoi acted unconcerned about it, perhaps naively thinking she'd gotten off easy since her avatar seemed perfectly fine. _Her funeral_. Yusaku was going to have to save a recording of her next duel for… future references.

After school, they dropped by Cafe Nagi, as per their usual. Kusanagi laughed outright at Takeru's dramatically escalating attempts to get Yusaku to give him Soulburner's scarf back. It was rather amusing in a desperate sort of way. But then the man turned around and scolded both Takeru and Aoi rather fiercely for dueling over Yusaku when he wasn't even there. Aoi was properly chastised, but Takeru just grumbled about it. Well, Yusaku supposed he could give the scarf back tomorrow if Takeru hadn't figured out the puzzle by then. Maybe. Jin just chuckled and shook his head at their antics.

They parted company shortly afterwards. While they'd usually spend more time hanging out with Kusanagi and Jin, tonight was one of their nights to have dinner over at Aoi's place. She'd informed them both earlier in the day that her brother was definitely going to be there this time, so a little cleanup was in order. Yusaku wanted to recheck everything on his computer anyway. Just… just to be safe. And he'd probably keep checking it obsessively until it was all over. But it _would_ be over soon. Just a little longer.

In the meantime, Yusaku could just… enjoy the day, he supposed. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, even the perpetual noise of Den City was at a low rumble. It was… nice.

Shame that couldn't last.

"Mr. Fujiki, now isn't this a pleasure."

Yusaku stopped short, alarm bells going off in his head as he looked behind him. He didn't recognize the voice, but once Yusaku got a good look at the old man standing a few feet behind him, he started mentally cursing himself for being a complete and total moron. Dr. Takagi looked much the same as he had in the most recent photos of him shared online, right down to the affable looking smile. The man had probably cultivated it all to appear as harmless as possible.

Yusaku really, really ought to have called Kusanagi about this, his own self-hatred be damned. Whatever this was, he could tell it was going to be difficult to get out of.

"I hope you didn't mind my intrusion the other day," Takagi Aritomo said calmly as he clasped his hands behind his back. "I must admit though, I'm rather overly eager to get started, and the jamming program my messages installed into your phone has sped things up beautifully."

_What?_ Yusaku took a step backwards, away from the man, adrenaline already beginning to pump through his veins. Whatever this was, he needed to get away. _Now_. Then something sharp stung his neck, and Yusaku realized the trap for what it was. He whipped around to find two black suited men headed towards him, their gait sure and steady. They had no need to hurry. Why would they? They'd just shot him with a tranquilizer dart. Yusaku reached up, his arms already feeling like leaden weights as he ripped the dart out of his neck. Too late to do anything. _Why had he been so stupid? Why hadn't he trusted anyone?_ Yusaku's legs gave out on him, the two men grabbing ahold of him as his mind began to fuzz out. _This was- This was his own fault._ He should have talked to Kusanagi. Trusted him. They'd never failed each other, not when it mattered. Maybe Kusanagi would have hated Yusaku for what he'd been doing with the Ignis, but he still would have been there for him regardless.

"Gentlemen, please be very careful with him." For a kidnapper, Dr. Takagi sounded awfully chipper and carefree. "Subject six is extremely important to the project. I cannot stress that enough. Treat him as if he is the most delicate of china. I do not want to see a single bruise on him."

Yusaku blinked, his vision blacking out at the edges, then what he'd heard registered in his sluggish mind and pure terror shattered what little composure he had left.

_Subject Six!?_

_No. Nonononono._

_This wasn't- He couldn't-_

_**He wouldn't survive that again**._

Yusaku tried to scream, shout, move, _fight back_, anything to get away, but nothing worked. His body was cold and unresponsive and his mind was quickly slipping into darkness. There was no escape. Not now and not then. Maybe not ever. Unbidden, his eyes slid shut. Yusaku could feel an arm hook under his knees and another around his back, lifting him up, but he couldn't… think. The only thing left was the ever widening void in his mind and then nothing.

—-

When Yusaku finally clawed his way back to consciousness, everything was white.

**Author's Note:**

> So. Where's Naoki? I kinda hate myself for it, but I couldn't actually find a way to fit him in. He's just too precious and I am going to hurt everyone in this fic. I just couldn't do it. Sadly, leaving him out also kinda makes sense in the way that relationships sometimes work. Yusaku was gone for four months, and then when he gets back he's all for being a good student, has zero interest in cards, and Aoi starts hogging his time along with Takeru. People can and do drift apart with less. Don't worry, Naoki, I still love you.


End file.
